


Opium

by hellion_dctr



Series: Doctor’s Prescribed Drabbles [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Deal with a Devil, Idea drabble, Possessive Behavior, Rating May Change, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22423942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellion_dctr/pseuds/hellion_dctr
Summary: A deal with a demon lord goes wrong, as they often do.
Series: Doctor’s Prescribed Drabbles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1613662
Kudos: 20





	Opium

“You can’t be here.” 

Frau had won. He’d locked the demon up for good, banished them beyond the point of return. They shouldn’t be there. The former exorcist’s ears were ringing. The demon approached, making Frau take a few stumbling steps back––not even remotely prepared for this battle now. It had been hard enough the first time. 

“I heard you’ve retired,” the demon said, smirking, so smug. They moved closer, a different vessel but those eyes were the same. Frau could recognize them anywhere, no matter how long it’s been since he last saw them. “I really had to see for myself.” They raise a hand, easily freezing the senior man to the spot where he stood beside the kitchen table, the chair on the floor flipped over in Frau’s moment of shock at the demon when they first appeared. 

They examined him. “I can see why…” a smile crossed their lips. “You’re not exactly what you used to be, are you? Old and aging, a decrepit artifact from times past, diseased and waiting to rot to nothingness. Poor thing.” 

Frau’s stomach flipped even as the truth of the comment burned. 

The demon dragged them closer across the floor, slow and casual. Frau shuffled stutteringly forward until the demon had him practically falling into his lap. Frau’s eyes widened when he feels clawed fingers stroke his wrinkled cheek almost tenderly, caring. 

The demon simpered, “Oh, I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You should have known that something as vast and universal as I am couldn’t possibly have been permanently locked away, not even with those divine seals of yours you had favored so much in your youth.” 

“Astatine…” Frau’s lips curled into a disgusted snarl as he tried to move away from the touch, though to no avail. “What did you really come here for?” 

With a huff of hot air, the demon whirled him away and sat him down on the previously fallen chair in a single smooth movement. Frau’s mind spun from the inertia. Astatine grabbed another chair from the table and sat down in front of him, straddling the chair with their arms resting on the back of the chair as they gazed at Frau intently. 

“You’re dying,” the demon said simply. They watch the retired exorcist quietly. “As a matter of fact, I can see the number of days you have left on the earthly plane, and let me tell you, there really aren't that many. You’re dying, and when you do, there are going to be entire hells of monsters out for a single delicious morsel of your soul. They’ll have torn you to pieces before your soul even reaches the depths of hell.” 

The exorcist stared at his hands and tried to clamp down on the horror at that. He didn’t even question the thought that he was going to hell, because it was such an obvious thing—why wouldn’t he? For all that he’s done in his long lifetime, Frau wouldn’t fool himself into believing that his soul was still worthy of ascending. 

“I could help you there,” the demon said softly. 

“Why would you?” 

Astatine had no reason to help them. Not after being sealed away in an empty vacuum of space in another interdimensional pocket of reality for decades. They had all the motivation and the means to exact revenge. They had the upper hand, they had the hunter entirely at their mercy after everything. They could do anything. 

“There’s only one person in the world who has ever defeated me. It has to worth at least something,” said Astatine. 

“Are you convincing yourself?” Frau’s eyes narrowed, body old but mind ever so sharp. “You just don’t want to share my soul.” 

“Well,” the demon flashed him a sharp smile. “That too.” 

Frau scoffed, the air wheezing out of his nose. “What exactly are you offering, old enemy? What do you want?” 

“There are a lot of things I want. I want the immense suffering and torment of everything living on this big blue disgusting earth. I want all those assholes upstairs to go suck it. I want to watch the destruction of the gods’ most beloved creations happen by their own hands. But for now, I just want your soul when you die.” 

“What will you do to my soul?”

Astatine shrugged, as if they hadn’t really given much thought about it. Frau wasn’t sure if they actually have. Even after all his decades of experience, Frau still couldn’t understand the way a demon thought. It was impossible for a human. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Astatine. “You’ll be under my total jurisdiction, is all. I’ll just decide when the time comes.”

There was a moment of silence. 

“What the hell,” said Frau eventually. “I’m going there anyway, after everything I’ve done. Might as well take my chances with the enemy I know than the ones I don’t.” 

The demon grinned, slow and languid. “Wise choice, as expected.” 

Frau stared at the hand offered out to him. For a moment he just looked at it, at the inhumanly pale pallor of that bony hand, slender fingers lined with black designs and dark nails that are pointed and sharp. Astatine nodded to their outstretched hand and raised their eyebrows. “Go on, take it. Gentleman’s seal and all that.” 

Another second of hesitation was all Frau needed before he was grabbing that inhuman hand. His own bony hand, wrinkled with age and pockmarked with scars from his younger years, was encased in an iron grip and brought to the demon’s lips. He winced at the chaste touch of inhuman lips to his knuckles burned a sigil onto his palm. 

“Don’t worry,” Astatine murmured as they held his hand. “I’m going to take such good care of you.”

* * *

So imagine the surprise of the great arch demon Astatine when the day that Frau, one of the greatest living legends of the demon hunter era, died of heart failure… a child appeared upon their doorstep. 

“What the fuck.” Was what Astatine said when they saw the child stumble into their great hall. 

They’d never seen the hunter in his childhood years but there’s no doubt that this was Frau. 

There was that same messy head of pale hair and those dark eyes as black as the abyss staring out from beneath the wild locks. The same curve of the olive-tanned face and angle of the eye. Astatine could recognize his old arch nemesis anywhere. 

“What. The actual fuck.” Astatine stared at the small form wandering around his halls now, all the lesser demons of their court ordered away as soon as Astatine had sensed a new presence upon their territory. 

The child couldn’t have been older than five. Because souls destined for heaven always reverted back to the age when they held the last breath of purity and innocence before losing it to the rest of their lives. 

Because it turned out that Frau was supposed to go to heaven. 

Astatine wasn’t sure whether to laugh hysterically at the irony or stand in shocked horror. A soul like that wouldn’t last a minute in the lower levels of hell, not without some sort of divine protection, not among the legions of demons that would devour something as tantalizing as a pure soul in a heartbeat. 

In the end Astatine still wasn’t sure what they’re going to do, but little child Frau was starting to wander towards one of the more dangerous areas of their fortress, so they went out to meet him. Astatine stilled as soon as those dark eyes looked up at them, wide with confusion and deep as the bottomless Styx. As a child Frau wasn’t short, but when he stood next to Astatine’s towering eight-foot figure, all of a sudden Frau seemed so small, so terribly fragile. 

“Are you a demon?” 

Astatine gave no reaction to the first thing that comes out of child Frau’s mouth, but inside they were surprised. They had heard that heaven-bound souls lost all memories beyond the age they’d been reverted to. That said something about the hunter that Astatine hadn’t known about their long-time enemy. They wondered how young Frau had been when he had first begun his training to become the greatest demon hunter in history. 

“Well, I don’t know. What do you think?” Astatine responded with a wicked smile. They crouch down in front of the child, but they still towered over him. 

Frau tilted his head, brow furrowing as he thought about it in earnest. “You do look like one, though. Father said that demons had horns–” he pointed to the curved antelope horns extending out from Astatine’s head, glossy ivory and wickedly sharp, then started listing down the items. “–they’re really tall, have really pale skin, and glowing eyes, and try to look like humans but can't do it exactly right.” 

“But?” Astatine cocked their head a little, curious and a little amused despite themselves. 

“But father also said that demons would try to hurt me on sight,” Frau’s little nose wrinkled as he said this, “And that I had to kill them before they killed me. But you haven’t done anything yet.” 

“That’s right.” Without thinking, Astatine took Frau by the scruff of his shirt and hoisted him effortlessly into their arms. They stood up with the child tucked into the crook of one arm. “And I won’t as long as you don’t start it first. So for now you should come with me so I can decide what to do with you.” 

The child furrowed his brow. “Where am I? Where are you taking me?” he asked. 

Frau had instinctively clutched the front of the robes Astatine wore in a tight grasp. Astatine could feel those tiny hands on his shirt and it was such a novel feeling. The great demon hunter Frau, now a helpless child, unable to fight back, at their complete mercy. It was intoxicating. 

Astatine patted the kid’s head. “Don’t worry,” he said, when Frau should have everything to worry about. “We’re just going somewhere more fun than here.” 

“Fun?” Frau asked suspiciously. 

“Fun,” Astatine confirmed. 

“But what about—“ Suddenly Frau was interrupted by a huge yawn taking over, and afterwards he rubbed furiously at his eyes. 

Astatine watched him in complete wonder. “Tired?” they suggested. 

A cute scowl appeared on Frau’s face and the child crossed his arms and buried his cheek into Astatine’s chest. “I guess I am,” Frau mumbled into the fabric, disgruntled as if displeased with the typical child’s limited capacity of energy. 

“I suppose the fun place can wait for a bit,” said Astatine, still staring at the child intently. “Why don’t we go somewhere where you can take a nap?” 

“Don’t like naps,” came the quiet mumble. 

“Oh, but why not?” 

“They’re such… “ And here Frau yawned again, then burrowed even further into Astatine’s arms, curling up in them. “... a waste of time.” 

But by this point his eyes had already drifted shut, and Astatine could feel the moment all waking conscience slips out of him and the small body went limp and heavy with sleep. They stared at the child slumbering peacefully in a demon’s arms with shocked awe. 

Such stupid, blind, _beautiful_ trust. How strange it was to be trusted so completely after a few mere moments from the first meeting. It was so sweet, so empowering. They could get drunk on this feeling.


End file.
